Banks, brokers and bucks

Friday, May 6th 2016

This week has been about banks and how much money they are making. We've had results from Westpac, ANZ and BNZ.

We've talked to the CEOs at BNZ and ANZ about their results and how things are going with mortgage brokers (unfortunately Westpac doesn't give us interviews). BNZ, as we explain in this story, is making very good headway in the adviser market - even officially disclosing how much business they have written.

Also chief executive Anthony Healy confesses getting back into the broker market is something the bank should have done a long time ago.

One of my take outs of these results is that mortgage brokers are playing an ever-more important role in the home loan space.

On a different note, we received a very good response to last week's question about regulation. Of the people who responded the large majority were opposed to the idea that mortgage brokers should become Authorised Financial Advisers.

RATES UPDATE
There have been very few rate changes in the past week. The main one this morning is that ASB and all its related entities have made their point of attack the two-year rate, dropping that but increasing some of the shorter term rates.